New York Comic Con starts tomorrow....and I don't want to go

With the convention itself beginning tomorrow I have to ask what has New York Comic Con become?

I’m not sure. I know it’s less about the events and more about being a happening. It’s a triumph of PR emptiness over substance. Everything about the convention is being trumpeted as if it’s the greatest thing in the world. That’s all well and good because it’s assured a sell out of tickets, but at the same time what does this mean for fandom?

While I can’t speak for this year, the convention starts tomorrow, I can say that based on my experience last year I’m not really looking forward to going to the Javitts Center. Last year represented a radical shift in the convention. It was the year it went from an ever growing fan friendly event to a complete freak show. The change is the result of the change in the attendees. No longer was the crowd fans of film, comics and anime, but instead it became about half fans and half were people there to just to be there. They were people who normally would never go to such a thing, hipsters and regular people with no interest in what the con was about. They didn’t want to be at Comic  Con for what it is but rather because it’s a media event- they could take pictures of all the diehard fans and they were angling to be on TV. They didn’t buy anything they didn’t really go to anything, they just wandered around and gawked. The fans were friendly and nice, the gawkers were rude crude and disgusting. And what's worse, last year was the first year where there were lots of complaints of theft, the "new crowd" seemed to be thieves.

I’m sorry if that offends, but the behavior of the people who told me they were there just to look was just wrong as they blocked aisles, left garbage , said crude things to women, bitched about long lines, let their kids run amok and just behaved badly. While I’ve had reservations about the Con over the last few years as it goes went its growth spurts, last year was just horrible. Yes I was on the fence in my posts but the experienced festered in my mind since then.

To be completely honest I don’t want to go.

I realized how much I didn’t want to be there when the New York Film Festival added press screenings and I was more excited about that. Then the New Yorker Festival announced events and I got excited about those. That’s never happened before. The Hamptons film festival schedule came out and I considered heading East. Comic Con was always my one and only focus…

…Not this year.

What does this mean?

It means I’m going to the convention and hoping for the best. It means I will be splitting my time there. I won’t be there from open to close, instead I’ll bail when it gets too much. It means I’m hoping for the best, but considering my expectations are so low…To be honest I'm hoping the rapid sellouts will mean less gawkers but one never knows.

Yea I know having this bad attitude isn’t going to win me many friends in Reed Pop but they have created this out of control monster that makes them a fortune and devours the soul of fans. As long as they are making money I don’t think they care.

Me?

I care too much, which is why if this year sucks it will break my heart

Reports will be coming---